Note: Okay, so we haven't been great about updating this, gomen! Looks like the story is on hiatus right now, but this is what we've got so far, so if you'd like to know what we cooked up, here it is…
(or if you happen to want to finish the story yourself, by all means, let one of us know and write it up. )
What you may not remember: Aoshi and Megumi confront Kenshin about Takahata-san's interference…and they are out for blood!
"Of all the things to do…" Kaoru was drinking her tea nearly half an hour later, glaring at her recently conscious husband.
Kenshin looked slightly embarrassed as he, his fiancée, and their unexpected guests sat at the table.
Megumi had only taken a little of her tea, while Aoshi had nearly finished his.
"You still haven't explained why you sent Takahata after us, Ken-san," Megumi reminded.
Kenshin smiled sheepishly, noticing the fire in Megumi's eyes, and the dangerous glint in Aoshi's. He then turned to his fiancée.
"Kaoru…I was wondering if I could speak to them-"
"Alone?" Kaoru filled in, her eyes rounding. "Forget it! You sent a matchmaker after them! I'm surprised both of them haven't killed you!"
"Yet," Aoshi muttered.
Kenshin glanced back at their two guests.
"How could you do such a thing?" Kaoru shook her head. "Playing with them like that-"
"Oh, I can definitely say that they both enjoyed the time they had," a voice spoke from the doorway.
Four heads swiveled to see a pretty man dressed in a pink kimono with yellow flowers printed on it. His long hair was held back in a half-ponytail, tied with a ribbon.
"Ah…" Kaoru looked to see Kenshin sink in his cushioned seat, Aoshi's eyes narrow, and Megumi clench a fist.
"It's rude to just walk in to people's homes," Megumi chided.
Takahata beamed a smile and flapped a hand. "I called, but no one heard." He winked at Aoshi. "Apparently, your hearing isn't as good as you think it is, Aoshi-kun." He smiled at Kaoru. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Kamiya Kaoru. I've heard so much good things about you…"
Greetings were exchanged before Takahata settled next to Kaoru. Needless to say, the whole experience seemed too...surreal.
"Your explanation, Himura," Aoshi spoke up.
Now that the man was awake, he and Megumi were planning on getting their answer.
Kenshin cleared his throat. "Well…Perhaps I should start from the misunderstanding…"
"Please do." There was no mistaking the sarcasm in Megumi's tone.
Kenshin nodded. "Apparently…Okina's gift to you, Megumi-dono, was accidentally sent here…"
Megumi's brows lifted.
"Gift?" Kaoru blinked. "What gift?"
"Women's clothing made of expensive material," Megumi hastily explained.
"So…I…" Kenshin continued slowly, "by…chance, Takahata-san was in town, and I asked him to find Okina and explain the mistake...saying that the gift was meant for you…" He cleared his throat. "I didn't expect anything to--"
"Kenshin-kun, don't lie!" Takahata scolded, smiling. "You also told me to find Shinomori Aoshi…that once I see him, I'll understand everything." He then looked at the onmitsu. "And did I ever. For someone who's capable of turning heads on the street…you definitely need more romance in your life."
Aoshi's fingers curled into fists.
"Takahata-san," Kenshin warned gently.
"Oh, you should have been there, it was wonderful!" Takahata exclaimed. "You and Okina were so right about them! When it all came down to it, Megumi would have liked nothing more than to start making babies-"
Megumi's sharp gasp interrupted his speech. "I never said that!" she exclaimed.
Kenshin, Kaoru, and Aoshi turned to stare at her.
"And Aoshi-kun…if it hadn't been for some teeny, tiny incident…he was definitely in a similar mindset-AAAAHHHH!"
Faster than anyone could see, Aoshi had yanked Takahata by the front of his kimono and thrown him outside into the yard. Takahata rolled on the ground crying out in pain.
"Ouch! My hip hurts! I wasn't finished with my story!" Takahata wailed.
"Don't bother," Aoshi retorted.
"I don't believe this!" Takahata shot to his feet like a person who apparently hadn't hurt his hip. "You people are the most difficult I've EVER had to deal with! I gave you both a means to act on what you both wanted…and you did," he declared matter-of-factly. "Yes, it was a little out of control. But that's the REAL issue, isn't it? Both of you weren't in control of the situation, and THAT'S what bothers you the most."
Cherie Dee
Takahata found himself flattened a half-second later.
"Aoshi-kun," he growled in warning. "As much as I like your pretty face—"
"Why are you looking at him?" Megumi Takani stood over him, her eyes flashing and her hair swirling about as if reflecting her intense anger. (In fact, it was windy, but no one noticed.) . "I'm the one that punched you, you asinine little meddling twerp. And I'd like you to know it has NOTHING to do with control. It has EVERYTHING to do with dragging my name through the mud and Aoshi's with it. You have NO right to manipulate people as you wish and—"
At that point Takahata was already covering his ears.
Aoshi studied the strange man and thought carefully. If this thing had some kind of odd mystical powers, there certainly had to be some way to negotiate with this thing. It appeared that "Takahata" was easily influenced if he took mere suggestions from Himura and Okina that were clearly ridiculous. It also appeared that Takahata would keep persisting unless some end were achieved.
But what?
"—and force the perverted will of Okina upon us. A man and a woman can not just be forced—"
Aoshi placed his hand on Megumi's shoulder, silencing the very long tirade .He put her behind him, safely out of Takahata's view and calmly forced the anger from his body. "What will it take for you to go away and leave us alone?"
"You mean you don't want me around any more?" His voice was plaintive, but Aoshi could tell that now Takahata was suddenly intrigued.
"Surely there are other people who need your services," Aoshi's mouth turned up into a ghost of a smile as an idea came to him. "Himura obviously doesn't need you. He has his wife. But Okina, poor Okina," he shook his head. "He's so obviously lonely that he misrepresented everything to you."
"He lied?" Takahata gasped.
"Well, I guess he did," Aoshi drew Megumi in front of him them and let his hand slide down her back slowly, possessively. "Megumi and I never needed your help."
Megumi stared at him for a moment before she played along. "That poor old man," she purred as she turned to face him and slid her hand up the front of his shirt. "He's been so lonely as of late, pining after that seamstress must have gotten to his head. He made up this whole thing as an excuse to work with her—"
Aoshi used years of disciplined meditation to ignore the fact that at the moment she was pressed up against him. "The fact is, we've been secretly together for years. It was hard hiding the fact—"
"He was my first, you know that?" Megumi cooed at Aoshi.
"I can't believe he lied to me—" Takahata frowned, uncertain what to make of the behavior of the two who had been all protests earlier.
"That's how lonely he is," Megumi added. "You should really should help him you know."
"But—" Takahata appeared to be wavering. "I can't believe him—I mean he was so insistent."
It was now or never, Aoshi realized. He had to absolutely convince Takahata that Okina had been lying all along or seriously deluded. That was the only way to turn Takahata's attentions back towards Okina and that poor hapless seamstress.
The inspiration for the idea came from Megumi herself.
He grabbed Megumi and kissed her.
Longwinded Girl
Takahata's dainty little mouth practically dropped to his knees at the sight of that ground-shaking, theme-music worthy kiss. There are about five kisses in all of history that had managed to reduce Takahata to a puddle of pink romantic goo. (and given his job description and the fact that he was a magical fairy, he had seen them all, regardless of time and space limitations.)
So he had to admit that this was a kiss that stole the rose from Romeo's pilgrim's lips, stirred the envy of Don Juan and paled the glory of Genji's amorous conquests. This kiss would have made Byron proud. This kiss made Takahata cry.
He felt a sudden surge of pride as tears spilled wildly from his eyes. Yes. He realized that didn't really matter if Aoshi and Megumi were just trying to play him for a fool. This kiss, if anything, proved that there was nothing more that he could do for them. If they decide to remain stubbornly uncoupled after all of that, then Takahata will just have to hang up his fairy wings, zap all of the pink out of his wardrobe, and join the cynical, jaded, single magical creatures union instead.
After several minutes of physiologically-impossible anaeorobic tongue-wrestling later, the Aoshi and Megumi pulled away from each other, flushed and breathless.
"See?" Megumi finally said with a quivering voice, "Secretly together..."
"Is this true, Kenshi--AHH!" When Takahata turned around, he found a swirly-eyed, oroing rurouni lying flat on the ground with a severe nosebleed.
Aoshi nudged Megumi lightly. "Um. That's quite a nose hemorrhage. Perhaps you should do something—"
"Yes, it does look quite serious. I would but—" Megumi lowered her head, embarrassed. Under her voice, she mumbled something about her knees not working anymore.
With a delighted giggle, Takahata disaparated in a poof of pink-strawberry scented cloud.
Oh those two are just hopeless...
Okina sometimes liked pruning his garden at night—in his ninja garb--with Misao's throwing daggers. Yes. It was a strange thing to do. Even he had to admit that. But being a ninja is a hard thing to get out of one's system. Sometimes, he simply got the uncontrollable urge to sneak up on something. And he found that bushes are a lot more tolerant of sneak attacks than random Kyoto residents.
So he almost had a heart attack when the bush began to speak to him as he prepared to launch into his Flying Deadly Pointy Metal Daggers Attack.
"Okina!" The hedge cried. "Okin—oh stop looking so scared! It's me, Takahata!"
The pretty man stepped out of the hedge, pulling branches and dead leaves out of his meticulously styled hair. "Ugh, materializing out of thin air looks cool, but it is so dreadfully imprecise."
Okina blinked. Once.
"Anyway, I came to talk to you about something very important..."
ChiisaiLammy
Meanwhile...
Koneko was not feeling all too happy. First of all, the pretty fairy man had abandoned her on the way to Tokyo with some lame excuse about not wanting the cat to mess things up just when all his plans were about to fall perfectly into place. "I'll come back for you later, kitty," the pink man had said, beaming widely. Koneko had not even bothered to reply with a hiss -- the pretty pink fairy man was simply not worth her time. Not anymore, at least.
What really pissed her off was that the stupid fairy man had prevented her from going back to her beloved ninja boy.
But it wasn't just the stupid fairy man's dumb antics that was bothering Koneko now. Perhaps the fairy man had been too preoccupied with his own plans to notice, and humans never noticed anything anyways, but...
Koneko could sense a terrible, dark presence stirring within the air. A presence she had first noticed when the pink flash had transported her and the evil kitsune to the strange pink dimension...
And it was all that damn hussy's fault.
.-.
The dark presence in question was, in fact, at the moment, sitting on top of a black cloud, brooding. (Though this wasn't much surprising—he was always brooding. It was part of his job.) His curly hair was long and black and tied back into a ponytail. He was frowning (as usual), though it looked more like a pout on his delicate, feminine face. His eyes were black. His clothes were black. His nails were painted black. Well, everything about him was black, except maybe his teeth, which were gleaming white, and his skin, which was ashy and pale. Basically, the Dark Presence was as black as Takahata was pink.
The Dark Presence was, in fact, Takahata's arch-nemesis.
The Dark Presence was also, in fact, secretly in love with Takahata, although he would never ever admit it.
The problem was, Takahata hated the Dark Presence. Well, maybe hate was too strong of a word, but the pink fairy man was certainly utterly terrified of the black spirit. (The Dark Presence was, admittedly, a rather terrifying being. Especially when he was feeling particularly sullen. Which was pretty much all the time.) The Dark Presence had been brooding on this fact, among other things, when he'd fallen asleep from sheer boredom. But then this strange woman who Takahata had been messing around with had woken him up with a rather interesting wish: a wish that she had never been born...
Shimizu Hitomi
Fortunately for Megumi, Koneko yawned and accidentally consumed this Dark Presence.
Koneko after all was an odd little cat. And she did not realize the utter mistake she had made. Had she, in fact, realized that the Dark Presence was contemplating wiping out Megumi, she might have been tempted to cooperate with it.
Instead, thinking she had caught a bug in her mouth, she clamped down and began chewing.
As it turns out, the Dark Presence was crunchy. But greasy—in a weird sweet, ethereal way.
Had she not, though, then Megumi would have never existed, Aoshi would have never run into the Battousai, and Aoshi that the little cat worshipped would have never existed. It would have been ironic. As well as confusing.
But on the other hand, this poor cat was stuck in an odd unnamed location by herself. She could, if she had a clue, unearth massive damage on Takahata's little world, or simply curl up on one of those odd beds and sleep.
As for Megumi and Aoshi, completely unaware of how their fates were in peril, simply put poor Kenshin inside and got the hell out of the Kamiya compound before they had to explain anything more. The fact was, they were quite anxious to deal with something important.
That of course being, starting in on what would be the sixth kiss of all time to qualify as a fangirl-screaming-inducing moment in some dark alley around the corner.
Longwinded Girl
In a puff of pink glitter, Takahata-san materialized for dinner. "Ooo, beef stew! What's the occasion?"
Okina sipped his tea in an attempt to suppress the tension marker from popping onto his temple. "Just a feast in the hopes that you will leave us this day."
A jaw fairly dropped in mortification. "But how can you think it, sir? I'm only here to ensure your happiness!"
The old man stood and slammed his cup down. "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! WE DON'T WANT YOU HERE!"
Takahata-san nudged the older woman at his side. "Natsuei-san, don't you think Okina-san is being unforgivably rude? Such manners…"
"I DO NOT APPRECIATE BEING A PRISONER IN MY OWN HOME! AT LEAST LET US OUTSIDE!"
The woman stood up as well. "Or let ME out of here! I have nothing to do with any of this!"
The cheery fellow gave an exaggerated wink. "Of course, Natsuei-san. Nothing whatsoever."
"Don't mock me!"
"Takahata-san, you were supposed to get Aoshi and Megumi together. What are you doing here?"
He shrugged. "That silly couple? They don't need me." With a point of his finger, miniature Aoshi and Megumi appeared on the table, right at the point of lip-to-lip contact, set on replay. Takahata shivered. "It was quite the sight."
"Then why are you still here? Your job is done!"
.-.
A few hours ago…
Somewhere in a dark alley, two figures with arms wrapped passionately around each other locked lips in a mad battle of sucking and tonguing. The woman pulled back, warm with exercise and panting heavily.
"Do…you think…we should help him?"
"I think he can…fend for himself," her companion breathed, moving in for another toe-curling kiss of the century.
.-.
Takahata pouted. "Aw…do you dislike me so much?"
"YES!" both the old man and seamstress said.
:.:yawn:.: "What's all the noise about?" Misao ambled into the room, fists rubbing her eyes.
"Whoops," Takahata smiled. "Oh well."
.-.
"Train…we could take the train!" the woman said, her back to a building, arms held hostage above her head.
"Mmm…perhaps."
.-.
"Jiya, who's this?"
"An acquaintance, I'm afraid."
"The he/she/(?) man waved. "Hi-i!"
"Huh."
"Beef stew?"
"Okay…"
.-.
"The train…the train! We're gonna miss it!"
The couple rushed to the platform, skirting thicker crowds and slipping between larger families.
"I can't believe you got a private box! You know, we wouldn't be late if…"
"A-ll abo-ard?" a man bellowed.
Her companion leapt up to the ticketman. "Two here!"
"Have a pleasant trip, sir."
.-.
Resting chin on palm, Takahata observed the young girl sipping at her meal. "So tell me, Misao-chan, do you think Jiya-dear needs some romance in his life?"
The girl nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! Gramps is so stupidly ga-ga over any pretty thing that happens to come his way."
The old man fell to tears, "How could you? Betrayed by one of my own!"
T-man gestured to the older people in the room. "Don't you think the two of them make a handsome couple?"
"Definitely! She's still pretty and a good age for Gramps!"
.-.
They were making their way down the aisle, lips connecting and parting until they found their coach. There, they backed into the door several times before finally sliding it open and closing it on a little boy watching curiously.
They groped and slobbered and fell onto the bed. The woman cooed. The man hummed. The train rocked steadily on its steel tracks, shuddering and straining over steep hills and bridges. The couple didn't mind a bit.
.-.
"Hey…where's Aoshi?"
Okina looked at her uneasily. "You aren't going to faint again, are you? Honestly, Misao, a ninja should be ashamed to faint so many times. Your father would have committed seppuku."
"WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY?"
.-.
The man looked around with narrow eyes. "This isn't another of Takahata-san's fantasies, is it?"
"No."
"Thank god."
.-.
"Lemme get him!"
Takahata—in what you could call divine intervention—stopped Misao from mauling her grandfather and thus, ruining all plans he had in helping along love in the winter of the old man's life.
"Don't be so hasty, fraulein."
"THAT MAN IS NO GRANDFATHER OF MINE!"
"Even perverts need love, Love," Takahata gleaned.
The older woman huffed and shot a deadly look. "I don't know WHO you are talking about, but no love will be had while YOU'RE under this roof!"
Okina turned on the seamstress. "You mean, you don't like me?"
She was taken aback. "Oh…I didn't mean…"
The fairly femme man sighed. "Senior attraction…"
.-.
The woman was tying her obi while the man slipped on his sandals.
"Aoshi…do you think that maybe…well…with all that's been going on…"
"It was inevitable?"
"Well…yes."
"I don't know. Come. We should be there any moment now."
.-.
"What do you mean we can't leave the house?(?)" Misao roared.
.-.
"Did you have a pleasant trip, sir?"
"Aa."
.-.
Takahata blinked at what appeared to be a case study in stupid questions. "Why, I put a ward around the house, funny girl. No one gets in, no one gets out. At least, not until these two spice things up. They won't let me help!"
Okina glared. "You've done quite enough, thank you. Your services are no longer required."
There was a pounding at the shoji. "What's going on in there?(?) Open up!" a familiar female voice said.
"Oh goody!" With a snap of his fingers, the screen slid open and the couple fell in.
"Aoshi-sama!"
The old man rushed to help Miss Megumi stand. "Aoshi…you look different. You have a sort of glow about you."
"You're strangely relaxed, Aoshi-sama!"
The man looked coldly at his company. "I am not."
Natsuei-san came towards him. "No…they're right. You've got a healthy blush to your cheekbones…this must be the doctor, Takani-dono looks to have exerted herself much."
Takahata grinned knowingly.
"The long walk here from the train station, no doubt," Okina said.
The doctor looked at Takahata with contempt. "Has he been causing you trouble?"
"Bursting with vivacious energy, kitten?" the lady-like man asked.
The old man nearly wept for joy. "Oh…you don't know how we've suffered so! Takahata-san sent Natsuei-san and I to some cruise…but then we started getting sick…so he sent us to a valley filled with flowers like you wouldn't imagine…and then—"
The doctor clapped delightedly. "Oh good. We're not too late to miss the finale. Aoshi, come sit next to me."
More than one jaw dropped. "Whose side are you on?" Misao screamed.
"Well, I'm on whoever's side is not Okina's and in this case, it's with Takahata-san."
"That's where you're wrong," the man declared. "I'm all for Okina-san finding love!"
"Precisely. Work your magic!"
Leila Winters
End Note: That's all for now folks! Sorry, but due to the current hiatus, this fic may or may not get finished. Hope you enjoyed it, thank you for all the support, even if we are just a bunch of zany writers. (and write a million hate letters to ff(.)net for not accepting stylized character usage...such as double question marks, or stars, or pretty much ANY symbol you can think of)